Un-American: The Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II: Images by Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and Other Government Photographers - Hardcover

Cahan, Richard; Williams, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0991541863 ISBN 13: 9780991541867

Publisher: CityFiles Press, 2016

Synopsis

It is a shame of America.

In the spring of 1942, the United States rounded up 120,000 residents of Japanese ancestry living along the West Coast and sent them to interment camps for the duration of World War II. Many abandoned their land. Many gave up their personal property. Each one of them lost a part of their lives.

Amazingly, the government hired famed photographers Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and others to document the expulsion--from assembling Japanese Americans at racetracks to confining them in ten camps spread across the country. Their photographs, exactly seventy-five years after the evacuation began, give an emotional, unflinching portrait of a nation concerned more about security than human rights. These photographs are more important than ever.

Authors Richard Cahan and Michael Williams--noted photo historians--took a slow, careful look at each of these images as they put together a powerful history of one of America's defining moments. Their book consists of photographs that have never been seen, many of them impounded by the U.S. Army. It also uses primary source government documents to explain and place the pictures in context. And it relies on firsthand recollections of Japanese Americans survivors to offer a complete perspective.

The result is one of the first visual looks at the Japanese-American internment. The story is told with brilliant pictures that help us better understand this important chapter in U.S. history.

About this title

About the Author:

Richard Cahan and Michael Williams have teamed up to produce twelve books. Most are based on long-lost archives or photographic collections. Called “the eloquent archival sleuthing duo” by Booklist magazine’s Donna Seaman, they have written award-winning books about photography, art, and history, including two on Vivian Maier, the reclusive nanny whose discovered photographic work has become a worldwide sensation. They both live in Chicago.

Review:

*(Starred Review) "In this unique, richly produced volume, they showcase 170 magnificent black-and-white pictures accompanied by an exceptionally illuminating narrative to tell the staggering stories of the resilient, courageous people Lange and others so sensitively photographed. Cahan and Williams even tracked down survivors, who share haunting memories. The result is an intensely revelatory and profoundly resonant book of beauty and strength, history and caution."
-- Donna Seaman,  Booklist

"Haunting"
--Chicago Magazine

"Breathtaking"
--Jonathan Eig, author of Get Capone and The Birth of the Pill

"Un-American, a powerful book by photo historians Richard Cahan and Michael Williams, who trawled government archives to gather the images, then employedmultiple sources, from the databases held by Japanese-American groups to the website Ancestry.com, to identify as many of the subjects aspossible by contacting survivors and their descendants."
-- The Village Voice

About this edition

• Publisher: CityFiles Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0991541863
• ISBN 13: 9780991541867
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240